As a catch up for all new visitors to Beyond the Bunker, we’ll be representing the original Practitioners series 1-55 (Simon Bisley – Chris Bachalo and featuring the most influential comic creatives in history). Thoroughly incomplete but featuring legends like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and Alan Moore already more will be hitting the site every two alternate weeks. For now though, sit back every Tuesday for a run-down of the men and women who created the comic industry we know today. (Or check the full list in the menus above). This week: 2000AD Legend and Judge Dredd creator Carlos Ezquerra.

A controversial choice this week with Joe Maduriera. Known to everyone as Joe Mad, Joe Madureira’s style combines Western comic book convention with the wildest and broadest Japanese manga style and has been creditted for helping the latter to influence the western comic book market in recent years – clashing the two in a way that has not been matched before or since. Most reknowned for his work on Marvel Comics Uncanny X-men he was a bold choice. His populist and cartoon-like visuals have made him a foil of ‘credibility-hungry’ critics throughout the years however the reason for his inclusion here is sheer, raw, distinctive talent, perhaps not his diligence on release of independent series as will be revealed below.

Few artists in the history of Comic Books (Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, Alan Silverstri all of whom will appear here) have had a bigger effect on the ebb and flow of the comic industry than Joe Maduriera with their own natural drawing style. He drew comics out of love of it and this is illustrated most clearly by how little there is to tell about his working history in the field. He arrived high up, splashed around – made his mark – and left.

Maduriera’s first published work was an eight page story for the anthology title Marvel Comics Presents featuring Northstar, a fringe character in the Marvel fermament. He became the regular penciller on Uncanny X-men in 1994 with issue 312, seeing through the formation of Generation X, the tenure of Sabretooth and the stuff of legend that is ‘The Age of Apocalypse’. His work even influenced the title itself. Archangel and Wolverine pitched headlong into an Eastern adventure in order to save the soul of Psylocke – an adventure that ran for three consecutive issues – involved none of the other characters, no Blackbird, no mansion and no other mutants. A complete departure from continuity that seemed in the reading as a neat excuse (as well as hinting at Psylocke’s oriental half-self’s mystical past) to showcase Maduriera’s distinctive and fun artwork.

Ultimates 3 (2008)

A hint at the effect his artwork would later have on the much later 2008 run of Ultimates 3 1-5 with Jeph Loeb. Critically and publically lambasted for its near total disregard for the conventions introduced and made popular by Mark Millar’s run on the series it was an enormous hit for Marvel. Its secret to longevity? The immersive and unabashedly shame faced comicdom taking place in every panel – the luxurious redesign of the character’s making the continuity jump worthwhile.

Battlechasers (2001)

It was his independent title, Battlechasers, published under the Cliffhanger label, which Madureira founded with J. Scott Campbell (Danger Girl) and Humberto Ramos (Crimson) that stirred the biggest fervour. Set in a high fantasy setting and utilising steam punk and sci-fi genres the story follows four central characters – most notably Red Monika and the outlawed War Golem, Calibretto. A simple enough premise but one that showcased Maduriera’s work faultlessly – which was exactly what he had in mind. It is this title’s production he has received the most criticism for, producing 9

Red Monika of Battle Chasers

issues in 4 years – constantly pushing up the value of the title rather than reducing it as fans anticipated the next instalment with ever increasing enthusiasm. He cancelled Issue 10 and placed the series on permanent hiatus after forming a game development company, Tri-lunar with Tim Donley and Greg Peterson.

Upon the announcement he would be returning to comics for Ultimates 3 he was asked about a conclusion to Battlechasers to which he replied ‘”one of those things that I think about every once in a while, and not having finished it bums me out… I would love to do it at some point, but it would be very far out.”

In July 2007, Vigil Games’ Darksiders was announced, of which Joe Madureira was creative director. It follows War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, on his quest to find out who prematurely triggered the apocalypse. It was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on January 5, 2010 and September 23, 2010 on PC.
Madureira has also provided cover artwork for Capcom’s Marvel Super Heroes for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, and the Sony PlayStation game Gekido: Urban Warriors.

Chris Bachalo has pushed the boundaries of what’s acceptable in modern day mainstream comic books to the extreme. Highly intricate, cartoonish page layouts depict insidious caricatures of popular characters. With blade like precision, Bachalo creates highly detailed dream sequences from whatever writing he’s handed. Forming a visual world of monsters, uggos, bandits and vagabonds throughout his career he has sent out Superheroes dressed for the streets. Pushing the concept of the superhero closer to street level has made Bachalo a hero of mainstream comic book readers deserate for an alternative interpretation of their favourite characters. After almost 20 years working with DC and Marvel (as well as a brief stint on his own title with Image imprint, Cliffhanger) it’s fair to say Bachalo has achieved exactly that.

Bachalo was born in Canada August 23, 1965, Portage la Prairie but was raised in Southern California. Perpetuating the idea that many great comic book artists arrive at their calling because of weaknesses in their preferred fields, Bachalo had grown up wanting to be a carpenter until he discovered he was allergic to dust. He attended the California State University at Long Beach, where he majored in graphic art and illustrated a number of underground comics.

Following graduation, Bachalo found work pretty much immediately with DC Comics. His first published assignment The Sandman #12 (1989) – however he had already been hired as regular artist for Shade, The Changing Man, revived by writer Peter Milligan with a greater adult orientation. With clear black and white definition in his work, Bachalo demonstrated the influences of Sam Keith (artist and writer on Maxx and Zero Girl, with a liquid attitude to realism in his artwork), Bill Sienkiewicz (Eisner Award winning artist and writer best known for his work on New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin, utilising oil painting, collage and mimeograph) and Michael Golden (famous for his work on Marvel’s 1970’s Micronauts as well as his co-creation of characters Rogue and Bucky O’ Hare.

Initially, Bachalo’s work was visibly influenced from many different directions as he began to try to find his own style. This leant itself nicely to Shade as it was a kaliedoscopic, dream-like character and loaded with abstract ideas. Bachalo’s work has always held a certain dark and teenage self-conciousness, reminiscent of rock cultutre of the early nineties – something which strangely has carried forwards with his development – somehow always representing very well the graphic representation of youth at the time. As the design work of a less disenfranchised youth became more assured, brighter and more heavily influenced by street design, graffiti and graphics so too has Bachalo’s work. Most likely coincidental it is this that has catapulted him into the most mainstream family of books there are today.
His early 90s work is minimalist with strong, thick lines, quirky characters and little concern for realism. Never shying away from detailed landscapes but showed a rare inclination towards pages with many small panels, something that deepens any artist’s involvement in a piece.

In 1993, Neil Gaiman selected Bachalo for the Sandman miniseries: Death: The High Cost of Living, starring the Sandman’s older sister. The popularity of Sandman at the time and the strength of the series itself bolstered Bachalo’s visibility significantly. The creative team reunited once again in 1996 for Death: The Time of Your Life. Apart from returning breifly to DC in 1999 for the Witching Hour with Jeph Loeb for it’s Vertigo Imprint, Bachalo’s future lay with the other side of the comic industries fermament. The X-Men were calling.
Bachalo’s introduction to Marvel was during his tenure at DC comics, illustrating X-Men Unlimited #1 – an anthology to the ongoing X-Men comic books. Based on the noise generated by his introduction in this book Bachalo ended his time on Shade and made a permanent transition over to it’s big rival. His first project was as part of the forward thinking and innovative 2099 universe, reinventing popular Marvel characters into a corporate nightmare of a future. His particular nightmare blended his own dual fascinations of steam twisted tech and metaphysical beings with Ghost Rider 2099. A technological reincarnation of the Spirit of Vengeance, Bachalo’s rip-snorting, highly detailed blend of twisted perspectives and steam punk edge furthered Bachalo’s influence with what was, otherwise, a more minor title in the 2099 universe. He also drew a cover for Runaways.

It was with Scott Lobdell, Uncanny X-men scribe, that Bachalo introduced a new youth team to the X-canon. Generation X lurched out of the Phalanx Covenant crossover bizarre and idiosyncratic because the creative team wanted to avoid the recent trend in superhero teams, where every member of the team represented a stock character. Generation X became a hit with the series’ namesake due to Lobdell’s realistically cynical and emotionally immature teen characters and Bachalo’s atypical artwork. Bachalo illustrated the series through much of its first three years, taking a break in late 1995 and early 1996 to illustrate the second Death miniseries, Death: The Time of Your Life.
During his time in Generation X, an unusual influence began to appear in Bachalo’s work. While still intricately detailed. Influenced by the unlikely inspiration Joe Madureira, his characters became more cartoony and manga-like, with large eyes, heads and hands. He gravitated towards extremes in anatomy, drawing characters that were previously portrayed as bulky, short or thin as even more so. This elongation, bulk out and caricature of easily recognisable characters in Marvel would make Bachalo a staple and an unusual choice for major events.

In 1997, Bachalo left Generation X folr Uncanny X-men, arguably the industry’s most popular title and his new found inspiration’s previous assignment – where he remained for more than a year until the end of 1998.

In 2000, Bachalo luanched Steampunk, a comic book series deliberately inspired by the genre of fiction of the same name, which emulates early science fiction by intentionally applying self-conciously antiquated and deliberately awkward solutions to modern design. Written by Joe Kelly, the series came under heavy critical fire for it’s obscure artwork, small panels, detailed panels and muddy, dark colouring which many felt made it difficult to tell what was happening. Kelly’s writing at the same time was not as straight forward as many readers would have preferred at the time. Conversely however, the hardened fan base for the title, which was brought out via Image’s creator owned imprint, Cliffhanger, supported it for the same reasons. Regardless, the luke-warm response to the title saw it end prematurely at issue #12 – it’s intended 25 issue run sliced in half. It is currently available in two reprinted trade paperbacks, Steampunk: Manimatron and the perhaps aptly named Steampunk: Drama Obscura.

Following his aborted tenure with Cliffhanger, Bachalo returned triumphantly to the halls of Marvel, completing occasional work on various X-men series including the new alternate universe, Ultimate X-men, Ultimate War, Grant Morrison’s New X-Men (collected in New X-Men vol.5: Assault on Weapon Plus and including one of the finest examples of a single issue story). In New X-Men Bachalo realises a scene beautifully envisioned by Grant Morrison in which Wolverine and Sabretooth find themselves at the urinals of the Hellfire Club – a no violence rule allowing a moment of barely contained aggression between the two of them. Bachalo’s combination of clean, crisp lines and perspectives – mixed with the organic, intuitive detailing of the figures and the characteristic elongation and exageration of the two figures brings the light but knowing humour of the scene beautifully forward to such a pleasing degree that it might well be one of the finest combinations of writing and artwork in a Marvel comic book of all time. Not an understatement (though obviously a matter of opinion) and the sequel to the Age of Apocalypse Crossover.

Bachalo's current assignment - the X-Men come of age in Wolverine and the X-Men

Bachalo was also the artist on Captain America for 6 issues (21–26, running December 2003–May 2004 cover dates) pencilling a divisive run written by Robert Morales. In an attempt to humanize Steve Rogers, the pair managed to split fans opinions fairly resoundingly with both leaving the title – Morales 10 issues short of his intended contract for the series.

From 2006 to 2008, Bachalo was the artist for the X-Men title along with new writer Mike Carey after completing his final story arc for Uncanny X-Men (#472–474). He was often filled-in for by artist Humberto Ramos, however.
Bachalo has also pencilled (and coloured) a number of cards for the Vs. collectible card game. These have been renditions of both Marvel and DC characters.

On top of his continuing work for Marvel, Bachalo finished issue #7 of Comicraft’s Elephantmen, an issue 4 years in the making. The issue was done entirely in double-page spreads and marks his reunion with Steampunk writer Joe Kelly. The issue’s story, “Captain Stoneheart and the Truth Fairy” also represents Bachalo’s first work outside Marvel and DC since his fill-in issue of Witchblade.
Bachalo has also been one of the four artists who was originally part of the Spider-Man Relaunch. Brand New Day, along with Phil Jimenez, Steve McNiven and Salvador Larroca.

Starting with New Avengers #51, Bachalo will provide variant covers for the creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Billy Tan to bring use the “Who will be the next Sorceror Supreme?” storyline.

When Richard Friend inks Chris Bachalo’s pencils, the piece is signed “Chrisendo”, a portmanteau of the names “Chris”, “Friend”, and “Bachalo”. Antonio Fabela is a regular colorist of Bachalo’s work.

Pictured some way above is Bachalo’s latest assignment, a critical and fan hit by the name of Wolverine and the X-Men. It’s the next generation of X-Men back at Xavier’s School for Higher Learning under the tutelage of the ol’ canuckle head and it seems pre-fitted to Bachalo’s specific style. Anarchic, high octane and cartoonish, Bachalo’s lavish imagery has found a great home for his brief tenure in these pages. Writer Jason Aaron even going o far as to create BAMFs – small Nightcrawler-esque imps – that create havoc everywhere they go in order to harness Bachalo’s habit of dropping unusual midgets into otherwise mundane panels.

As his graffiti style of comic book art would suggest, Bachalo will leave an indelible and lasting mark that brightens up everything around it. An anarchic and chaotic practitioner – Bachalo is an artist who has caused the mainstream comic industry to adapt to him – something that has furthered the pursuit of great stylistic innovation in mainstream comic books. Bachalo so much pushing the envelope as setting fire to the envelope and feeding it to the little toothy deamons that hide at the edge of his pages.

Banshee: Sean Cassidy in X-Men (introduced as part of the second gen X-Men in Giant Size X-Men 1 along with Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Warpath and Storm). Banshee lived on in the comic books for some time, a stable, reliable side character and came into his own as leader of Generation X (alongside Emma Frost) in which he, Frost and Sabretooth kept the next generation of kids out of the way of the Phalanx. In X-Men: New Class he’s almost the only character placed pretty much in line with continuity in the books as his age in the sixties reflects the age he’d be now (relative to Prof X). A mainstay of the books for some time Banshee was killed trying to stop a plane crash.

Havok has occupied most of the theories surrounding the decision to start at the beginning. Havok’s most notable feature in X-Men is that he is brother to Scott Summers (Cyclops) and has always lived slightly in the shadow of his brother. That clearly isn’t the case here as Cyclops is part of the modern day canon of the previous movies. At the X-Men: First Class panel at MCM it was a question aimed squarely at the writers. All they could say was that Havok is related in someway to Scott. Hard to figure out where they’re going with this but if a franchise is built hopefully all will be revealed.

The inclusion of Mystique is an interesting choice. Most viewers of previous X-Movies’d be aware that Mystique has a very clear resolution to her plot line. Her association with Erik Lensherr in this adds a neat reference point to both sets of movies (with the Wolverine Origins franchise sandwiched in the middle).